Terminally ill girl becomes rapid internet hit

15-year-old Alice Pyne blogged about her "bucket list" of things to do before she dies.

When Alice Pyne, from Ulverston in Cumbria, started her blog on Monday to make a list of all the things she wants to do before she dies, she could hardly have imagined the overwhelming response she would get -- even leading to her being mentioned in Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday.

Top of her wish list is "to make everyone sign up to be a bone marrow donor", an issue that was raised by her local MP, John Warnock during Prime Minister's Questions. Twitter has followed suit, and the hashtag #alicebucketlist has been trending in both the UK and worldwide -- although some tweets seem to be unclear as to whether or not one of Alice's wishes is to trend on Twitter.

Since being diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma almost four years ago, Alice has helped sign up more than 1,100 bone marrow donors to the Anthony Nolan charity's register. Her "brave and admirable efforts" were praised by Prime Minister David Cameron in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

"Thank you so much for all your lovely messages to me," Alice wrote on her blog on Wednesday morning, "I sat up all night reading them as they came in from all over the planet, every single one, and they have made me smile so much".

One commentator on wrote: "Dear Alice,You're helping a world of people realize how many beautiful things we all take for granted every day. You've touched more lives than you know. Thank you for that."

Alice lists 17 to-do items on her blog but adds that these are only "some of my bucket list". In addition to her wish to increase the number of bone marrow donors, Alice expresses many wishes typical of a teenage girl: to have a photo shoot with her sister and friends, to host a private cinema party "for me and my BFFs", to meet Take That and to "go to Cadbury World and eat loads of chocolate".

However, she notes that the advanced stage of her illness will mean that some of her wishes will remain unfulfilled.

Emanuelle Degli Esposti is the editor and founder of The Arab Review, an online journal covering arts and culture in the Arab world. She also works as a freelance journalist specialising in the politics of the Middle East.